Gerald Sim, actor - obituary

Actor who was often cast as a vicar, notably in To the Manor Born and The Fall
and Rise of Reginald Perrin

Gerald Sim with Martine Beswick in Dr Jekyll and Sister HydePhoto: REX FEATURES

6:10PM GMT 06 Mar 2015

Gerald Sim, who has died aged 89, was a dependable supporting actor in numerous television series and films, including many directed by his brother-in-law Richard (later Lord) Attenborough.

He was, however, probably best known for his performance in the original series of To the Manor Born as the smooth local rector who is not unhappy when the domineering Audrey fforbes-Hamilton (Penelope Keith), the newly widowed and impoverished lady of the manor, has to downsize. He hopes that this means she will no longer interfere in the running of the church, but he welcomes the arrival of her nouveau riche successor Richard DeVere (Peter Bowles), a generous donor to church funds.

Sim played various dotty vicars in many other sitcoms, including Keeping Up Appearances, Love Hurts and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin – in which he gave a memorable address at Reggie’s “memorial” service, beginning with the words: “ 'Here are the gumboots you ordered, Madam.’ My somewhat unusual text is taken from the play in which Reggie’s son Mark has just made his West End debut. Mark’s part in the play was not a large one, he had just one line – yes, you’ve guessed it – 'Here are the gumboots you ordered, Madam.’ Just one line, yet a vital line, for if the lady had not received the footwear in question, she would not have gone out into the farmyard mud that dark night. She would not have been ritually slaughtered by the maniacal cowman, and there would have been no play.”

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The son of a bank employee, Gerald Grant Sim was born in Liverpool on June 4 1925, the younger brother of the actress Sheila Sim, who would marry the actor and director Richard Attenborough.

The family moved to Croydon when he was young, and Gerald was educated at Cranbrook School in Kent. He was inspired to become an actor during the Second World War after listening to John Gielgud in The Great Ship, a play for wireless by Eric Linklater in which the actor played a wounded officer in the Western Desert who dreams of the end of the war. “I was mesmerised by the sound of Gielgud’s voice and the pleasure of the words,” Sim recalled. “It had never occurred to me until that moment that I could be an actor.”

After Rada he worked in rep and went on to make some 100 film and television appearances, beginning with an uncredited role in Roy Boulting’s Fame Is the Spur (1947). He appeared in seven films directed by his brother-in-law: Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), Young Winston (1972), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Gandhi (1982), Cry Freedom (1987), Chaplin (1992) and Shadowlands (1993).

During the 1960s he featured in several of Bryan Forbes’s films, including The Whisperers (1967), with Eric Portman and Edith Evans as a lonely old woman who thinks imaginary creatures are spying on her, little realising that her family are plotting to make off with her life savings. Sim somehow managed to keep a straight face in Roy Ward Baker’s hilariously camp Hammer horror Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), in which he had third billing.

On television he played establishment figures (doctors, priests, policemen) in numerous serials, including The New Avengers; Edward and Mrs Simpson; Coronation Street; The Professionals; Bergerac; and Miss Marple. In 2007 he came out of retirement to make his final appearance on television, as the rector in a 25th anniversary special episode of To the Manor Born.

In later life he lived with his sister and brother-in-law at Denville Hall, the actors’ retirement home in Northwood, north London.